Sunday, November 28, 2010

Four Years After Programme Died, Indian Navy Floats Bid For Trishul-type SAM

The Indian Navy has called for information from global vendors to support a potential purchase of >10-km range surface to air point defence missile system for warships upto 7,000-tons (the Kolkata-class destroyers will be ~6,900-tons). The Navy has stipulated that it wants a system with a range in excess of 10-km, capable of engaging multiple & sea-skimming targets, capable of engaging both supersonic and subsonic targets.

Logic would dictate that a navalised VL variant of the Maitri SR-SAM be co-developed, with the second choice being to co-develop a navalised VL-Astra. Third choice is to ink a supplementary contract with Nova Integrated Systems (already co-developing the Barak-8 MR-SAM/LR-SAMs with IAI) to co-develop an advanced derivative of the existing Barak-1. Can't understand why the Indian Navy has to seek global RFIs when all it has to do is seek RFIs from the DRDO and Nova Integrated Systems.

what happened to indo french maitri. it is also a point defence sam of 10 km or excess of that. i saw v.k.saraswat sir said that sr-sam(maitri) is a state of the art sam with 100% kill probability. i think navy is looking for an immediate procurement

Why ask for the information? Doesn't the Barak I system work well enough? Wuldn't it be redundant as it has a range of 32ish KM? Or do they want something in between the range of the CIWS and the Barak I? Seems silly to me.

This makes no sense whatsoever. Why can't the Navy just continue using Barak? Or wait for Maitri? What purpose would be served by inducting so many systems for the same purpose and straining logistics and maintenance infrastructure?

I wouldn't be surprised if this turned out to be an excuse to buy the American Sea RAM, just like the MPA tender was just a formality to order the P-8I.

DRDO and PSU defense firms need a kick in the rear for all the misuse of funds and setbacks caused to all the programs they promised. They have become a laughing stock of the nation and the world. Pakistan and China should present awards to the management of the PSU defense firms for failing to meet India's critical defense needs and indirectly serving Pakistan and China. Defense sector PSU industry has become synonymous to "Over-promise and never deliver". Trishul is a prime example.

DRDO trumpets all ongoing projects with too much fanfare and the only people they are fooling are the aam aadmi in India. Pak and China know that all the projects are a failure. China has been quietly developing advanced weapon systems over the last 2 decades and some of which are not with any other nation (for example:anti-ship ballistic missiles). They will pass on all their technology to Pak. What are we doing????

Eh stop blaming the navy ... they are the ones who do the best in terms of indigenization of all the three services.

Most likely the ROI is meant to evaluate and explore concepts for the next generation post Barak SAMs. It could also be a way of legitimizing Barak 1 purchases for the Kolkata class, but since its an ROI, not RFP, I guess it might be the former.

Barak2 by the way is a different class than Barak 1. Barak 2 is a LR/MR-SAM not a SR-SAM. Do your homework people!

Well its an ROI and not RFP. In this age of internet may be even IN has "right to information". But very disappointed about the trishul program. I think as an individual or organization, it is important to deliver every darn time. So much waste of tax payer;s money. Atleast some person should be dismissed from DRDO.

@Shiv, Can we an analysis article a to how and why the program failed ? Is there any hope left for trishul or things have moved on to better alternatives or foreign purchases.

To Anon 7:31Can you prove that all projects of DRDO are failure?Well, all are not agree to you.Indian armed forces so far included many products developed by DRDO and ongoing research is going on.There are very few countries which have organization like DRDO.Maximum products of China are made out of DIRTY ROOM APPROACH-familiar with this term? OK it is just plain copying with little or no modifications, of course not superior from the original.You mentioned the Anti-ship ballistic missile-(to target Aircraft Careers mainly)that's the thing workable only on papers not in real world situations.Has China tested such a long range missile anywhere?Can you give us the link?Practically, it is quite impossible to find a particular ship in deep ocean as any given point of time ,there are thousands of ships and they are all moving.To detect them one need accurate satellite data and precision calculation.Finally the Aircraft Careers or ships are equipped with state-of the art defensive systems like CIWS and other escorts-here is the link-http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/China--s-anti-ship-missile-not-a-threat--Navy-chief/578104/Finally-why you think rhe private parties can develop cutting age weapons?Where they will source tech?Our Indian private players haven't design a single 9mm pistol (: BTW -Are you a paki? Don't mind.

Barak does not have true multi-target capability because it has radar CLOS guidance which requires the tracking radar to continually point towards the target until interception. So the tracking radar can be used to intercept a second target only after the first target has been destroyed. Such limitations can be overcome by using a missile with its own active terminal guidance seeker (which barak/trishul do not have), as well as a 360 degree AESA tracking radar with the ability to engage several targets simultaneously. Barak is also limited in range and speed, and may have a tough time against supersonic sea-skimming missiles traveling above mach 2.0 (especially when dealing with several targets at once).

The Navy Chief is being delusional to ignore the threat of China's anti-ship ballistic missile, while the US is taking strong note of it's threat. Here again you can see the Indian citizen being kept in the dark.

To Anon 7:50Ok ,I agreed to what you have shown but I simply do not agree whatever DRDO has designed are all failures and the solution is only privatization.We need to build a military-industrial complex to speed up production,exports and revenue/job generation.It is still long way to go.

Anon 7.46 PM Is there any credible news report of China having successfully tested Anti Ship BM? China is claiming about such a weapons system but till date it has not demonstrated it's capability. IRBM and missiles of it's class are effective against stationary target and not against moving targets. Even if China developed satellites to track enemy ships how will it help the missile to home in to a moving target? IRBMs and ICBMs are not like cruise missiles which are highly maneuverable. Are there any ICBMs or IRBMs which can change their trajectory after they have been fired?